House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City) by Sarah J Maas Review

My rating: 5/5

Has a non-spoiler and spoiler section!

Those last 200 pages....

Non-spoiler section

House of Earth and Blood is New York Times bestseller Sarah J Maas' official debut adult fantasy novel from a brand new series called Crescent City. Sarah J Maas is the author of the Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses. 

This book follows Bryce Quinlan, a half-fae, half-human woman in her 20s living in a city called Crescent City which has every magical creature possible, including SJM's beloved Fae, angels, mer-people, vampires, werewolves, witches, it goes on... Bryce works in an antiquities shop and lives a relative life of leisure, going out with her friends every night. However, everything changes when her closest friends are murdered brutally. While the person responsible is supposedly incriminated and jailed, the case is re-opened two years later when it turns out to be more complicated, and Bryce becomes involved to help untangle the circumstances of the murder and quickly learns that her friend's death is related to the fate of Crescent City and its repressive political regime. 

Hunt Athalar, Bryce's love interest, and Ruhn Danaan, Bryce's half brother, are the other two main characters of the book, and the trio team to figure out the case as murders continue occurring around the city.

If you loved Sarah J Maas' other books, this book is totally for you. This is an amazingly engaging fantasy read (and that's saying a lot, considering the book is 800 pages) with plot twists that you will not see coming. I love SJM, and this book once more proves her mastery over character and world-building and plot. Despite SJM's signature touch of romance in this book, female friendship is most definitely at the forefront of this book, and it's one of my favorite things about this book.

Bryce Quinlan has the sauntering swagger of Celaena Sardothien (Throne of Glass) along with the cleverness, but if I had to compare her with someone from the SJM multiverse, it would be Nesta Archeron (A Court of Thorns of Roses). Make of that what you will. 

“I promised Fury not to do anything stupid,” Bryce said, her eyes on Syrinx’s branded-out tattoo. 

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do anything smart.”

Bryce Quinlan, Crescent City

I would definitely classify this book as an urban fantasy, it is very modern and Bryce walks around with a phone, wearing heels and shooting guns, unlike the medieval sword and bow and arrow of Celaena and Feyre, respectively. There's also a lot of modern lingo; Hunt and Bryce are trying to "ID" the murderer, Bryce shoots like a "champ", carries "ammo" in her pocket for her guns and one of the side characters is an expert hacker. Even further, the characters wear jeans, T-shirts and sneakers, and at some point, Bryce is even described wearing neon pink sneakers. The modern and contemporary aspect of this book makes it even more interesting and new; even though it has Fae and magic, it stands apart from Throne of Glass and ACOTAR. Bryce is the modern woman you want to be friends with.

Although I struggled with connecting to the characters in the beginning of this book, it is a long book so a lot of backstory and detail is revealed which helps you know the characters better. This book is officially one of my favorites of this year already, and I can't wait for more information on book two! According to Goodreads, this will be a trilogy just like ACOTAR, which is nice.

Spoiler Section, proceed at your own risk!

There is a lot of world-building in this book. Hearing about the Fae's history and Midguard and FiRo and all these new details was a bit confusing and a lot to take in. I'm definitely going to be rereading to understand all those elements of the setting. However, it is nice to have a world so expanded from the beginning since both ACOTAR and Throne of Glass were more localized in their first books. There's definitely a lot of things to learn and new characters to meet and I can't wait. I'm definitely very curious about what Aidas' role will be.

Are Hunt and Bryce endgame? It's a classic SJM move to introduce a new love interest in the second book, so I'm trying not to get too attached. I feel like the fact that SJM had such an equal dual POV from the beginning suggests that they might be endgame. I've already seen some Tumblr theories say that Aidas will be Bryce's love interest, what do you guys think?

As I said, I found the book a bit confusing at times because of the world-building, but also because I couldn't keep track of what Bryce's latest theory about Danika's murder was. The final breakdown, from what I understand, starts with the Kristallos demon's venom, which nullifies magic. Human rebels isolated the proteins that the venom targeted, which are essentially the source of magic. This, later on, became a drug called Synth, used initially for healing, but which can also grant whoever takes it magical powers. Danika found out about Synth and was interested since Bryce didn't have any powers and she wanted to protect her. Micah wanted to use the Horn to summon an otherworldly army to help his cause and become an Asteri, but the Horn is broken. He thought he could use the Synth to heal the Horn, but he couldn't steal the Horn without raising suspicion, so he made Danika steal it. We all know what Danika did (ground it up and turned it into tattoo ink) with it, which was an incredible plot twist. 

I teared up quite a few times during this book. The moment when Bryce and Danika were talking during The Drop and Lehabah's death were definitely one of those. SJM's writing was poignant, emotive, and perfectly imbued the central female friendships at the heart of this novel. 

I'm loving this fanart of Lehabah from Margaret Morales.

What did you guys think about Crescent City? Are you excited about further releases from Sarah J Maas, including Nesta's book in 2021?

Thanks,

Yomna